Hillforts

A hillfort is a late prehistoric sites defined by one or more banks and ditches usually located on an area of high ground. The defences, either partially or wholly surrounding the site, are either single or univallate ramparts or multiple, multivallate, and could include steep banks or walls as well as ditches and palisades. The entrances are often defended with further outworks of banks and ditches, famously at Maiden Castle in Dorset. Hillforts may be located on the site of earlier enclosures of a smaller and less defensive nature; they may also evolve over time with the defences becoming more elaborate. Bulstrode Camp in Gerrards Cross is a large multivallate hillfort completely surrounded by housing, and Seven Ways Plain in Burnham Beeches is a univallate hillfort. People began building hillforts in the Late Bronze Age c.1000 BC, such as at Ivinghoe Beacon, and hillfort building declined in the 2nd century BC in the Middle Iron Age.

Hillforts will not necessarily be located on the highest or most inaccessible hills in the region. For example, some hillforts occur in low-lying areas, such as the Fenlands, on pieces of ground which rise only a few metres above sea level and the surrounding countryside. Examples of low-lying hillforts in Buckinghamshire are found in the north of the county at Norbury Camp, near Padbury, and Maids Moreton hillfort.

Excavation in the interior of large hillforts has revealed oval or circular houses, streets, annexes and palisaded enclosures. Four- and six-post structures, interpreted as raised granaries, are also fairly common, especially at Danebury in Hampshire. A small number of sites include buildings which appear to have functioned as temples. Other features comprise platforms; paved areas; pits; gullies; fencelines of stakes or posts; hearths; and ovens. There is evidence for bronze and iron working and potting on a number of sites. Evidence of hillfort defences is also found in excavation at sites such as The Prebendal in Aylesbury and at Taplow Court.

However, sometimes very little is found in the interior of a hillfort on excavation, which suggests varied uses. Where some may have been permanent settlements, others may have been temporary refuges in times of emergency. While some hillforts have massive ramparts which would have been useful for defense, others have very slight banks and ditches that could never have been used for protection. Theories for these kinds of sites include seasonal meeting places and markets, cattle corrals, centres of redistribution and excarnation areas. In recent years, the emphasis on defences has changed, and large multivallate hillforts are seen as one manifestation of the power struggles between competing elites. Their ability to mobilise the labour necessary for monumental works on such an enormous scale is seen as the expression of this competition.